Safety in Numbers
by Autobot-Ratchet
Summary: Lily and Savannah are regular college students until Barricade finds them. Now they have to juggle work, exams, friends, and keeping their new alien guardians out of trouble! Can they survive the semester? G1 characters included. AU. Rated for safety.
1. Chapter 1

Barricade hated to wait. It wasn't in his programming. He especially hated waiting in his alternate form because he couldn't stretch his legs. With this in mind, why was he waiting in his alternate form in a Fort Worth alleyway?

Barricade's motor let out a hiss of disgust. Two measly insects, which made up six billion of the earth's population, were the reason. Starscream didn't tell him why they needed the two, and Barricade didn't care to learn the answer. The police car was certain Starscream had a glitch in his central processing unit, and kidnapping the two only cemented his speculations.

Suddenly he heard female voices floating down the street, interrupting his musings, and Barricade turned his audio sensors up to listen. "All I'm saying, Lily, is that this street is too quiet for downtown at 10 PM," the voice said. "You know how busy it usually is." Barricade felt his front bumper slightly curl down in response to the voice. Why Optimus Prime ever felt he needed to protect those insects was beyond him. Nonetheless, he needed to accomplish his orders, and he pulled out of the alleyway with a purring motor.

Starscream had told him the two females would be in what humans considered passed for a learning institute, and Barricade's motor backfired in a snort as he mentally scoffed. Humans lived for such a short period of time that they could hardly consider themselves educated at the end of their life spans, much less the ages of the insects attending "universities." 18 earth years was barely a blink of an eye compared to his race. Barricade alone was older than Earth itself, and the Autobot weapons specialist Ironhide was easily three times his age.

Suddenly the shorter insect - designated Lily, Barricade realized – with long brown hair and green eyes looked back at him and Barricade silenced his engine, freezing in place. The last thing he wanted to do was report that they escaped because he wasn't careful. Those were youngling mistakes and Starscream would have his central processor on a silver platter.

"Savannah?" Lily asked, meekly tapping the taller insect on the shoulder. The ditzy-looking blonde beside the shorter insect looked at her. "Uh, do you get the feeling something's watching us?"

"You've been watching _Nightmare on Elm Street_ too much," Savannah said. "What do you think is going to happen to us? Freddie Kruger got your tongue?" Barricade performed a quick Internet search to locate the insect's reference and almost snorted. "Look, just because it's dark out and no one's around doesn't mean you automatically have to assume the worst. It'll be fine."

"I know that. Remember, I am older than you by six months." Savannah snorted but looked around again just the same. Barricade remained frozen, not wanting to attract any more attention from the two insects. They continued to walk up the street, unknowing of the danger behind them. Barricade's front bumper smirked and he turned on his engine, prowling up the street behind them.

The insects continued to walk for several streets with Barricade trailing them. The shorter insect, the Decepticon noted, was rather paranoid and relied heavily on the taller insect designated "Savannah" to calm her. _Weaklings, all of them,_ he thought. Barricade finally couldn't stand to wait any longer and lurked closer behind them. Suddenly the more paranoid insect looked right at him and Barricade felt his spark quicken in its case.

"Savannah, do you recognize that police car?" she asked. Savannah looked back at Barricade and tilted her head curiously.

"Considering that the entire Fort Worth police fleet looks like that one, can't say I have," the insect said. Barricade's engine let out a whistle of relief and both insects looked at him. "On the other hand, seems like it's been following us, the creep. Officer, is there a problem?"

Barricade didn't bother to turn on his holo-form projector and give them the relief of seeing one of their insect brethren. Instead, he transformed and smirked upon seeing their shocked faces. The short insect grasped the taller insect's upper arm with its hand before spinning around and running. "That's right," Barricade said with that same smirk. "Run like the insects you are."

He gave them a minute-long head start. After all, he could track them down with his heat sensors if they strayed too far, and what was the fun of catching somebody without the chase? He walked lazily in their general direction, relishing their tiny human screams as they heard his steps boom like small aftershocks on the concrete below him. They scurried across the downtown landscape, panicking.

Barricade located them on the first floor of an abandoned parking garage, hiding in a stairwell. He tore it apart, concrete and dust falling around the insects as they screamed feebly. Then suddenly his computer noted that his heat sensors had gone offline. When Barricade looked back towards the insects' last location, they were gone. Barricade cursed and transformed back to his alternate form, which he grudgingly admitted covered distance more easily.

After a few minutes of searching, he found them at the corners of what the insects had labeled "Commerce Street" and "4th Street" next to a construction site. He transformed back to his original form and started to pick them up when suddenly he heard sirens wailing from a couple of blocks away. Barricade panicked, making a youngling mistake. He froze and the insects escaped his hand. He paid them no heed because an offensive, highlighter-yellow vehicle careened down the street as it transformed, angry sirens shrieking. It was that blasted Autobot medic, Ratchet. Barricade hissed unconsciously.

"I would tell you to put the humans down, Barricade," Ratchet said dryly in his smooth bass timbre, "but it appears that you've done the hard part for me. Thank you; it was very kind." He smirked.

"You are not welcome, Auto-brat," Barricade said with a growl. He noted the insects hid behind the banana-colored buffoon, although he had no idea why. The medic was known across Cybertron for his hair-trigger temper. Barricade's weapons systems powered online and Ratchet's circular saw powered on in response, cutting through air with a whine. Barricade's battle computer said that the best was to fight, and he punched the medic in the chest with full intentions of ripping out the ambulance's spark.

Intense pain blossomed in his left arm and several messages flashing across his optics told him the medic had severed a main energon line and Barricade cursed as the line stained the street with a vibrant, shimmering blue. He threw a blind punch at the lemony vehicle and sneered when the medic fell into a crouch, circular saw raised above his head towards the Decepticon.

"What do you want with them, anyway?" Ratchet asked.

"Ask Starscream," Barricade replied. "You know as well as I that he won't trust me with that information." A little half-truth never hurt anything.

"Forgive me if I don't believe you." The medic cocked his head slightly to the side as he stood. Arms wrapped around each other, the insects still cowered behind the medic's massive legs. Barricade's upper lip component curled in distaste. He was about to strike at the Autobot when an engine roared through the streets behind him, heading straight toward him. Barricade quickly turned to the side, raising both his right fist and his left mace in an effort of self-protection.

The massive black truck burned rubber as it spun to a halt in the middle of the street. The truck then transformed, and once again Barricade cursed Primus for his bad luck.

"Hello, Ironhide," Ratchet said. "Look who decided to join us this fine Texan night." Barricade's spark fluttered rapidly. If he made it through the night alive, then his boss had another thing coming to him the next time the police cruiser saw Starscream. Barricade closed his eyes as he heard the sound of a cannon on-lining itself, and then he heard no more.

When she was sure the police cruiser wouldn't get up again, the "insect" 19-year-old Savannah Thompson peeked out from behind the yellow medic's foot. "Uh, what exactly is going on here?" she asked, frightened after her adrenaline high had subsided.

"For some reason," Ratchet said as he turned to look at her, "he wanted to steal you and your friend. We are from the planet Cybertron, and we are called Autobots. My name is Ratchet-"

"The name's Ironhide, kids," the black truck interrupted, "and you'd best not forget it."

"-but the Cybertronian that Ironhide just off-lined is a Decepticon. They aren't what you would consider model citizens and would kill any human in a second. Don't hesitate to run from them."

"I think we followed that advice pretty well," Lily said. "I'm Lily and she's Savannah. Do you have any idea why he wanted us?"

"I do not," Ratchet said.

"Our leader might, though," Ironhide said. "His name is Optimus Prime. He has what humans would call a 'heart of gold' and won't mind helping you."

"Well, then," Savannah said, grinning impishly. "Take us to your leader."

The two aliens exchanged glances with one another and Ratchet turned to the two humans. "I've already called him over on our internal communication systems. He should be here shortly."

The purring throb of a diesel engine floated through the quiet night. "That would be him," Ironhide said. He turned toward the approaching mass in the shadow of an alley. "Hello, sir." A massive sapphire blue semi-truck with scarlet flames painted on the side appeared from the dim.

"You rang?" a baritone voice asked, hints of a tease in his tone. "If one of you could load Barricade onto my truck bed..."

The two assisted their leader with the task as Optimus and the teenage girls alike looked at each other, though the girls couldn't tell the alien was watching due to his transformed state. "He must be huge if he's a semi," Savannah murmured.

"It's really a matter of opinion," the leader said, drawing a small squeak of surprise from the taller girl. "You are actually quite tiny from my perspective."

"I'm not sure to take that as a compliment or not," Savannah said.

"I'd take it as a compliment," Lily said. "After all, it's not like a _War of the Worlds_ thing going on here. Considering they fought off that one there-" She jerked her head in Barricade's direction. "-I think it's safe to say that they're pretty harmless."

"You do realize what they did to get him in that situation..." Savannah said, trailing off ominously.

"I can assure you we are here to protect mankind," Optimus said, "but I'm afraid that the two of you will have to come with us so I can explain all that is happening in privacy. Which of us would you like to take back to our temporary headquarters?"

Lily was suddenly reminded of the technique she had used on her neighbor's children when she was babysitting them, letting them pick out something to retain some control while at the same time having no control over the outcome. The girl tried to stifle a snort of wry disbelief; the alien leader was treating them like a bunch of human toddlers.

"Uh..." Savannah tried to reach a decision as she turned to her small friend, who was in her own world. "Lily?"

"Hmm? Oh. Ratchet," the shorter girl said, smiling sheepishly at the other two. The one they called Ironhide shrugged.

"No skin off my back," he said.

"I will meet you there," Optimus said. He pulled out into the street and drove away from them with Barricade safely concealed underneath a tarp. Ratchet transformed into a Hummer again and popped open the doors.

"Get in," he said, and Savannah jumped into the passenger seat.

Well, are you getting in?" she asked her friend impatiently.

"I can't sit in the driver's seat," Lily said with a sheepish smile. "It's too weird." She opened the backseat door and launched herself into the backseat, promptly falling back on her rear end. She looked up at the vehicle in slight confusion. Ironhide laughed from behind her and extended a finger, which she used to pull herself to her feet. She whirled around to face him with her right hand firmly planted in her hip. "What are you laughing at, Iron-butt?"

The alien stared at her, indignant. "You had better get inside before he does anything about that comment," Ratchet said from his alternate mode. He sounded suspiciously like he was trying to cover up his laughter. Lily pulled herself into the vehicle without incident and eased the door closed.

"Can you feel it when I close that?" she asked. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You aren't," the sentient ambulance replied as he pulled out of his parking space with an offended Ironhide on his heels. "I can feel it, but it's a gentle pressure. Almost numb, in fact. A bit like someone squeezing your shoulder, I suppose."

"That's fascinating," Lily murmured, mostly to herself.

The three beings traveled the remaining portion of the trip in silence, and Lily had to laugh when they saw what building they were pulling into. "The stock show grounds?"

"It is about 70 feet tall and most often not used this time of year," Ratchet said. "In addition, we can blend in if there is an event. It's quite handy, although the amount of dirt in the main arena leaves something to be desired."

"I'm sure it does," Savannah said, shuddering.

"All right, out now so I can transform." He popped the doors open and the two girls exited the vehicle just in time to see him transform. Several others of his kind milled around the building, with many huddled over a downed alien. "Prime, we're here!"

One of the huddled stood up to his full height and began to walk to the trio. Lily found herself holding her breath; Savannah was right. He was huge, hovering at roughly 30 feet tall. _Wow_, she mouthed to Savannah. The girl was staring at Optimus with wide eyes. He knelt to their level with a whirring of gears.

"My name is Optimus Prime," he said to the two. He held out a finger for them to shake. "This is shelter for the Autobots, whom call me leader. Ratchet, Ironhide, how much have you told them about us?"

"He said you were from the planet Cybertron and explained the difference between Autobots and Decepticons," Savannah volunteered. "Ratchet said we should run from the Decepticons or we'd be squished."

"Or vaporized," Lily added cheerfully.

Optimus vented air through his ventilation chambers in a Cybertronian equivalent of a sigh. "There's more to it than that, I'm afraid," he said. "We have been in war for an extremely long time. 5,000 vorns to be exact, which I believe translates into 83 million human years. Before the Decepticons became our opposing faction, they simply revolted against the poor working conditions my predecessor as Prime had installed. By the time I became Prime, they had become drunk with power and their leader Megatron decided their new goal would be conquering the universe. They started with Cybertron."

"That's horrible," Lily said softly. "I'm sorry."

"You could do nothing about it, little one," Ratchet said. He gently rubbed a comforting finger down her spine and she turned her head to rub her cheek against it. She squeezed his finger with her hand. "The war is long in the past, though the threat remains."

"Why did Barricade want you two, anyway?" another alien from the huddle surrounding the Decepticon asked.

"That's what we were going to ask Optimus, actually," Savannah said. "I have no clue. We're freshmen in college and rather puny freshmen at that. I can't see why they would want a sorority sister and a bookworm who spends every waking moment in the library." Lily ignored the jibe – she was used to it by now.

"I'm not sure," Optimus said slowly. He stood from his crouch and stretched. "Are your parents involved with anything that Decepticons could find interesting?"

"You don't think they're going after our family, do you?" Lily yelped, jumping slightly. Ratchet's hand kept her from falling backwards. "This can't be happening!"

"Regardless of your disinclination, it is," the scarlet robot beside Optimus said.

"My father is in the US Air Force," Savannah said. "Don't see what my mother would have to do with the situation, though."

"My parents work as scientists with a private lab here," Lily said. "They work with weapons. I really hope this doesn't have anything to do with them..."

"Did someone say weapons?" Ironhide asked, walking over from his previous conversation with a bright yellow Autobot. "I'm the weapons specialist here. If this involves new technology of any kind, this is my field, Prime."

"Figures," Lily muttered. Louder, she added, "I'm not sure what kind of technology it is. My parents didn't talk about it. Dad did give me...well, crap."

"What?" Savannah asked.

"I just realized I had this on me the entire time," Lily said, pulling a small pistol out of her purse. "Not that I think it would do much good, but at the very least it could cause a distraction. This was what Dad gave me."

"Could I see that?" Ironhide asked. Lily nodded and gave it to him. He squeezed the trigger.

A flash of white light filled the entire coliseum and Lily dropped to the floor with her hands over her ears. Shards of glass, cubes of concrete, and metal fragments crashed around her. Then, just as soon as it had begun, the chaos was over. She looked around and coughed as the dust stirred up from the impact of debris entered her lungs. Several of the aliens had fallen to their feet, curled in little balls to protect themselves, and were only just stirring to rise.

Savannah was first to speak. "What the hell was that?" she asked.

"You think I would know?" Lily countered. "You know my parents. They wouldn't tell me anything about work."

Ironhide was dumbfounded and stared at the device in his hand. "I'm not doing that again," he said.

"You think?" the yellow bot he had previously been conversing with hissed from the other side of the room. "You damaged my paint!"

"Forget your slagging paint, or I'll give you something worse to complain about!" Ratchet exclaimed in exasperation, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Lily, I believe I've found your long-lost twin," Savannah quipped.

"Well, I've found yours too," Lily said with a sigh. "You're too high-maintenance for your own good." She yawned.

"Prime, if I could have your attention," a robot with a mild-mannered voice said to the leader. "We need to move out soon if we don't want the other humans to discover what happened in here."

"You're right, Prowl," Optimus said, inclining his head in the newcomer's direction. "We will need to find a new place, however, where we can hide. Not to mention the matter of protection for Lily and Savannah we need to clear up."

"If I may suggest something," Lily said. Everyone turned to look at her. "We're going to college at TCU. It's located downtown and isn't too far of a drive from here, and they have huge parking lots where you can hide. Plus you would be able to keep an eye on us from there."

"It's settled, then," Optimus said. "We'll follow you to your university and then hide among you, protecting. Ironhide, Ultra Magnus, Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker will be Savannah's guardians. Ratchet, Wheeljack, Preceptor, and I will be Lily's."

"Sir, that is inadvisable," Prowl said. His black door-wings, the word "Police" written across them, stiffened high on his back in alarm. "You really should be free to come and go. A guardianship will only serve to weigh you down."

"Yes, but it's a risk I'm willing to take," Optimus said, "and if they really are after Lily, then I would like to keep an optic on her myself. The rest of you will patrol the area and hide out wherever you can. Transform and roll out!"

**A/N: Transformers do not belong to me although my OCs Lily and Savannah, as well as the plot do. And if you're wondering why I chose Texas for this story, it's because Fort Worth has some awesome history. Look it up sometime - it truly was the wild west. I hope you enjoyed and I'll be posting more soon.  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I own several copies of the Transformers comic books and an Optimus Prime toy. I do not own the Transformers. *sob* We're getting to the rest of the story, I promise. It's going a tad slow for the first day but I want to do as good of a job as possible, and setting up the story takes time. I believe in quality over quantity. Hopefully, though, the pace will pick up soon with a visit from everyone's favorite caffeine-infused Decepticon in a couple of chapters. Guess who. ^.^**

* * *

They reached the campus with Optimus in the lead, Lily seated comfortably in his cab. "Where are we to go?" Optimus asked her. Lily looked up at his radio sleepily and blinked.

"What? Oh, sorry. It's getting a bit late for me. Our dorm is right up there. Although I'm not sure where you can park - you chose a rather large alternate mode of transportation. No offense."

"None taken," Optimus replied, and parked behind the dorm. He stuck out a tad around the small cars and trucks. The rest of his crew parked alongside him; Ironhide parked to his right and Ultra Magnus to his left. Savannah exited Ironhide's alt mode and patted the top of his cab lightly.

"Watch yourself, now," Ironhide said. "I am not a canine."

Savannah grinned as Lily exited Optimus's cab. "Aw, I didn't mean it like that, Hidey," she said.

"Hidey?" Ratchet asked from the corner of the parking lot. Had he been in his main form, he would have been grinning. "How sweet, Ironhide. You haven't even known her for 15 minutes and you already have a pet name."

"Don't test me," Ironhide muttered. "You will not call me that again, femme."

"Femme?" Savannah asked, screwing her face up in confusion.

"You are a female, are you not?" Perceptor asked. "That's what we call our females."

"You have women?" Lily asked.

Everyone was silent for a few moments before Optimus spoke. "We did, at one point," he said, a sad note in his voice. "Unfortunately, a couple of vorns ago Megatron killed them and all of our sparklings in an attack on our youth sectors."

"More like genocide," Ultra Magnus added.

"Oh my god," Lily said, open mouth covered with one hand. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know..."

"It's fine," Optimus said and a tender hand rested on her shoulder. She jumped and whirled around. A tall man, about six-foot-five-inches, with raven hair and light blue eyes set in a strong-jawed face stared back at her. "It was a long time ago, and we've had a long time to cope. Despite the tragedy it represents."

"How did you do that?" Savannah asked. Lily elbowed her.

"Hey! His race just died!"

Savannah gave a dirty glare to her friend. "He said himself that it was a long time ago."

Lily sighed in exasperation and looked down at the cracks in the concrete at her feet. The man smiled wanly. "These are what we call holoforms. They're the graphical representative of ourselves, and they would be what we would look like had we been human."

"Cool!" Savannah exclaimed. "Do all of you have them?"

"Yes," Ratchet said, "but you can see them in the morning. It's time for you to go to bed now."

Savannah's jaw dropped. "But- What...? We're college students. We don't need a bedtime."

"Be as it may," Optimus said, "Ratchet's right. If you want to do well in your studies, you should go into recharge so you can wake up refreshed."

"What's-?"

"Recharge is sleep," Lily said, cutting off Savannah's question before she had a chance to finish it. "Now let's go. I'm tired anyway."

"Fine," Savannah said, and the two walked to their dorm room after saying goodnight to their new guardians.

The next morning, a loud ringing woke Lily up from her sleep. She blinked a couple of times and swallowed thickly before drawing her uncovered feet back into the covers and flipping on her back with a groan. She blindly grasped for her cell phone and accepted the call before looking at the caller ID. "Who is it?" she asked, her words slurring together from grogginess.

"Good morning, Lily," Optimus said. "Have you had a pleasant recharge?"

"I would have," the girl mumbled to herself. "I guess so."

Lily could practically hear a smile on the other end of the line. "Good, then. We have a few rules to explain that we cannot discuss over this phone line. Please get dressed and come down here as soon as possible so that we can talk to you and Savannah."

"All right," Lily said. Optimus hung up and Lily got out of bed with a moan of annoyance. After changing into some shorts and a purple tank top and slipping on some flip-flops, she set to the task of waking up Savannah. How the girl even managed to sleep through the ringer on Lily's phone, Lily had no idea. It was insanity, really, how much Savannah could sleep through things. She shook her roommate several times and eventually resorted to jumping on the bed. A hand wrapping around her ankle made the girl give a squeal as she stopped bouncing. It was only Lily's latest target, who had woken up looking like the living dead. Her hair stuck out at all sorts of angles and her green eyes had crusted over with sleep. "Don't do that to me!" Lily exclaimed. "You scared the daylights out of me!"

"How do you think that I feel?" Savannah asked.

Suddenly the door burst open as Lily opened her mouth to retort. Savannah bolted up in bed as the two girls stared at the door. Lily finally freed Savannah's hand from her ankle, resulting in a flip-flop to the face when a man with dirty blond hair and light blue eyes burst in the room. "What's going on in here?" he asked, peeling the flip-flop from the side of his head with an unreadable expression.

The two girls looked at each other briefly. They had just met Ratchet's holoform. "Uh, nothing?" Savannah asked meekly.

"We heard a scream and thought you were in trouble," Ratchet said with a huff, walking over and handing Lily her flip-flop. "Don't do that. It's dangerous."

"We won't," Lily said as she accepted the shoe. She slipped it on and slid off the bed. "Sorry."

"As well you should be," Ratchet said. "Now come on, now. We need to lay down some ground rules."

"Goodie," Savannah muttered as she got out of her bed and walked to the closet.

Ratchet cocked his head to the right, much like a dog. "What was that?"

"Are you going to leave or not?" Savannah asked, covering herself with a shirt and pair of shorts.

"Why would I?" the medic asked in response.

"Uh, duh? Because I'm changing in here?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything," Ratchet said.

Lily decided to step in before the situation got any more ugly than it had in the past five minutes. "Ratchet, girls in our species like privacy. We feel uncomfortable changing in front of other people, especially people of the opposite gender. The fact that you chose a male holoform doesn't help thing at all."

Ratchet sighed. "I'll be outside." He left the room, standing guard in the hall while Savannah changed. The two girls exited the room and Ratchet escorted them down the hallway. "Optimus and the others are planning to meet us in the commons, underneath those huge trees. It should be a huge group."

"What do they want to talk about anyway?" Lily asked, curiosity getting the best of her.

"Your safety," Ratchet said, "as well as the rest of your lives. You want to finish up college and have social lives, do you not?"

"Yup," Savannah said. "Definitely."

"Well then," Ratchet said, "we need to have that talk. Otherwise you'll just be protected until the Decepticon threat passes. You won't have any other options to do anything." He let that sentence hang over their heads until they reached the commons, where a large group of men sat in the grass underneath a massive oak tree. A couple had laptops and were typing furiously at the keyboards. Another had an mp3 player and was head-banging to unheard tunes. The others were all talking to each other. Everyone became silent when Ratchet approached with Lily and Savannah.

"Hello," Optimus said to them. "It is good to see you this morning."

"You as well, Optimus," Lily said. Savannah echoed her faintly.

"Come and have a seat." The leader patted the grass beside him and the two girls sat in the semi-circle of Autobot holoforms. "Before we start, we better introduce everyone so you know who to look for when you run into trouble. I've taken the liberty of registering your guardians as students at this campus. Sideswipe, take those things out of your ears. You can't hear us." Ironhide simultaneously yanked Sideswipe's ear-buds out of his ears and slapped him upside the head. The twin protested with a "hey!" but it went unheeded. Everyone's attention reverted to Optimus. "You all know my holoform. Beside me is Sunstreaker-" A sullen blond with a slightly aquiline nose looked up at the sound of his name. "-and next to him is his twin Sideswipe."

"Hey there," a bouncier redheaded version of Sunstreaker said, waving. "Nice to meet you. Again, that is."

"I'm Ironhide," a buff, stocky man with black buzz-cut hair said. A faint scar covered the right side of his face, a reminder of an old wound, but Lily had to strain to see it. "The one that won't shut up next to me is Ultra Magnus." This comment drew chuckles from many of the Autobots and the girls included, as Ultra Magnus hadn't said anything. He frowned slightly in response to Ironhide's barb but didn't say anything.

"Nice to meet you," Ultra Magnus said. Lily raised her eyebrows at the sound of his voice and Magnus laughed. "I sound like Optimus, don't I? We're brothers." Now that she noticed, Lily could see the resemblance between the two. Not only did they share the same coloring, but they also had the same strong, squared jaws and significant height. Lily had though that Optimus was tall at six-foot-five, but Magnus looked to be at least two inches taller. _He should play basketball_, she thought with a ghost of a smile.

Optimus's voice pulled her from her train of thought. "Now, Lily, you are a biochemistry major, right?" Lily nodded. "And Savannah is obtaining a major in journalism." Savannah also nodded. "What are your schedules for this semester?"

"I have Introduction to Biology at 10 AM on Mondays and Wednesdays, with a lab on Fridays. US Government is on Mondays and Wednesdays at 2:20 PM, and Introduction to Chemistry is at 1 PM on Tuesdays with a lab on Thursday. Anatomy and Physiology is at 3 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Not to mention I clean glass in the labs at 4:30 every afternoon. I don't have anything on the weekends."

"There are laboratories involved?" a man asked from beside Ironhide. The speaker in question had brown hair with a shock of white streaked down the middle, curving around the right side of his head. It didn't make him look old; rather, he looked almost rebellious.

"Heaven help us!" Ratchet said, throwing his hands up in the air and rolling his eyes. "Wheeljack in a lab."

"Uh, what's wrong with - Wheeljack, is it? - in labs?" Lily asked, suddenly nervous.

"There's nothing wrong with it at all," Wheeljack responded. "I just…well, have a tendency..." He looked down at the grass beside him, blushing slightly.

"Almost everything he touches explodes," a red-haired man beside Optimus said bluntly. "I'm Perceptor. Ratchet and I keep Wheeljack from doing anything too crazy."

Lily gulped thickly. "You'll...be there for my labs when he's there, right?"

Several of the Autobot holoforms chuckled and even more smiled at her question. "I'm not that bad, am I, mechs?" Wheeljack asked in dismay. "Anybody?"

"We'll be there," Ratchet confirmed, a smile teasing at the corners of his lips. "Now Savannah, what's your schedule like?"

"I have US Gov with Lily on Mondays and Wednesdays. I also take Communication in Society those days at 3:50 PM. Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I take Media Writing and Editing at 11:20 and Art Appreciation I at 2:30. And generally my sorority will have parties on Fridays or Saturdays, but it's no guarantee."

"Does everybody have that?" Optimus asked, and the others confirmed the information. "All right, then. We'll switch out guardians every once in a while, but we'll let you know when we do. We'll stay within shouting distance at all times." Optimus pulled some small objects out of his back pocket and gave one SIM card to each. "These will encrypt your cell phone calls so you can ring us without a Decepticon threat. Don't hesitate to use them." The girls each took them and placed them in their phones. "All right, then. Remember, if anybody asks about us, we're just your classmates. Let's get to class, everybody. Good luck."


	3. Chapter 3

Ratchet walked alongside Lily towards the science building, where Lily had her Anatomy and Physiology class. "You never told me why you were getting a degree in biochemistry," the Autobot medic told Lily with a slight frown. "Why?"

Lily chewed the inside of her cheek as she turned to him. "It's embarrassing, really," she said. "I want to go into medicine, become a doctor. Help kids in Africa, that sort of thing. I know it's so stereotypical - kid goes into medicine, kid goes overseas trying to save the world, kid doesn't help anybody in return - but I guess it's just a dream of mine."

Ratchet stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and faced her with a stern expression, cupping her face in his hands. "Don't ever, ever say that helping anybody is stupid," he said. "Don't ever say that. It is not stupid, understand?"

Lily drew back with a squeak of surprised fear. "Y-yes," she stammered. "I won't say that anymore."

Ratchet took his hands off her face. "Good." They never talked about the matter again. After walking in silence into the classroom, Lily took her customary spot at the front of the classroom and Ratchet sat beside her. He wiggled in the seat a little to get more comfy. Lily finished organizing her pencils in a straight line and looked up as her professor, Dr. Martin, walked into the room. He was an older man, around 55 or 60 years old, but wasn't frail in the slightest. He terrorized practically all of his students.

"All right, class," Dr. Martin said. The loud chattering of otherwise-engaged students hushed as everyone turned to the front of the class. "Turn to page 455 of your book." Ratchet handed Lily her textbook and she accepted it with a faint smile. Unfortunately, her professor's eagle eye caught this exchange. "Miss Evans?"

Lily froze and felt her heart jump in her throat. Her classmates tittered at her. "Y-yes?"

"Shut up, all of you," Dr. Martin said to the rest of the class. He then turned his focus back to Lily. "It's noted on the syllabus that you are not to share books in this class. Did you even read the syllabus, for that matter?"

Lily finally found her voice, though it quavered. "Of course, Doctor," she said. "He is a new student, however, and hasn't had time to buy the book yet."

"Well then, Mister-"

"Brandt," Ratchet said hurriedly. "Ratchet Brandt."

"Brandt," Dr. Evans said, "let me make one thing clear in here. This is my domain. You will abide by my rules and my syllabi." Dr. Martin got in Ratchet's face. "If I say jump, you ask how high. Do I make myself clear?" He growled the last part, and stared into Ratchet's ice blue eyes.

"Crystal," Ratchet said without blinking, a dangerous calm in his voice. It chilled Lily through to the bone. She knew the Autobots could be dangerous, but she hadn't realized just who she was dealing with until that moment - even their CMO could be domineering in his protection. She was glad that she was the one in his care, and not the ones he was protecting her from.

"I'll let you go since this is your first day here," Dr. Martin continued, "but I'm not going to let this slide by next week. Watch yourself, Brandt."

"Will do," Ratchet said.

"Now that that interruption is over, please turn your attention to page 455 in your books. Or others' books, as the case may be." The professor glared at Ratchet before smiling again. "Bone growth is a fascinating topic..." Lily felt herself nodding off and struggled to pay attention to the topic at hand. Savannah wasn't faring any better.

"Sideswipe, stop that," she hissed to her guardian, who looked up at her with an expression equivalent to a kicked puppy. "Every time you kick me, I lose focus. This class is hard enough to stay awake in without you in the mix."

"Sorry," the twin said, and returned to his doodling. A moment later he looked up at his charge. "You know who would be good in this class?" Savannah ignored him, but the twin continued anyway. "Sunstreaker. He's my twin, you know. Before the war started, he was an artist. He was really good at it too. Got into all sorts of galleries and exhibitions. I bet he would like to take this class. I'll check with Optimus and see if he can switch us out."

"Good," Savannah said. "Maybe then the professor won't look at me like I've grown a second head." She gave a sheepish wave to the professor, who frowned at her before continuing the lecture.

After classes ended, everyone met in the girls' dorm room to "debrief the situation," as Optimus called it. Frankly Lily just thought he needed something fancy to rename the term "hanging out." The twins, Optimus, and Wheeljack all sat on Lily's bed while Ironhide sat on the floor alongside Perceptor and Ultra Magnus. A rather miffed Ratchet stood by the door. The rest all sat on Savannah's bed.

"What got up his afterburners, Prime?" Sunstreaker asked, jerking a thumb in the medic's direction.

Lily laughed. "He met my anatomy and physiology professor."

"And he's a no good, pain-in-the-aft, son of a toaster too." The medic practically growled his frustration.

"Is he really that bad, old friend?" Optimus asked.

"That's actually a pretty accurate description," Savannah said. "He's a real pain to handle, and his classroom is his domain. He owns everyone who steps foot in there. He has a huge temper and isn't afraid of the dean. He'll cuss at everyone, threaten students, threaten even the dean if he's in a particularly foul mood. And that's not the worst of it, either."

"What could be worse than that?" Ultra Magnus asked.

"He throws his cane at people," Lily said.

Everyone was silent for a few moments, shifting glances to and from each other. Finally Sideswipe broke the silence and burst into laughter. Savannah looked at him with a frown of confusion. "Was it something I said?"

"You just described Ratchet as one of your professors," Ironhide said with a grin of his own.

"Watch it, Hide," the CMO said. "I'm not afraid to take that sentence into account at your next tuneup." Ironhide gulped and paled sheet-white.

"See what I mean?" the Topkick asked.

"Hide..." Ratchet warned.

"Oh. Sorry, Ratch," Ironhide said, sheepish.

A ringing phone interrupted the conversation. Optimus picked it up. "It's Prowl," he explained. He answered the call after placing it on speaker-phone. "Hello?"

"Prime?" Prowl asked. "I'm just checking in with you. Inferno and the others are also on the line. You said that you needed to debrief us?"

"Ah, yes," Optimus said. "I was just debriefing the others. The mission is successful thus far. Everyone has blended in successfully and there haven't been any 'Cons showing up on our scanners so far. How has everything at the station been going?"

"Just fine, Prime," Inferno said. "Although our scanners did pick up some brief Decepticon activity a couple of blocks south of the campus. It was a small blip on the radar, but be alert."

"As your tactician, I would recommend being around the girls at all times," Prowl added. "Ironhide, make sure you inspect that weapon of Lily's. It's the key to all of this. You may want to get Percy and the others as well."

"Is there a place they can inspect it safely?" Optimus asked.

"There's a nuclear fallout shelter in the basement of the science building," Lily said, "and heaven knows there are more gun ranges around the city than you can count."

"Oh good," Wheeljack said. "We should get started with the research right away." He leaned back against the pillow, only to hear a squeak. "What's this? And why are you turning such a brilliant red, Lily?"

Lily said nothing and instead chose to hide her face in the crook of her left elbow as Wheeljack pulled a bright yellow rubber duck and a stuffed Eeyore plush out from underneath the pillow. Everyone minus Lily stared at the objects in confusion. Savannah started to laugh. "No, Savvy," Lily moaned. "Don't laugh at me. I love Winnie the Pooh."

"Oh, don't be so embarrassed," Savannah said. "I know you do."

"Excuse me, but what is going on over there?" Prowl asked over the phone, which still rested in Optimus's lap. "And what exactly is this 'Winnie the Pooh?'"

"My records indicate that it is a show designed for human sparkling viewers, and teaches them about the meaning of friendship as well as other Autobot qualities," Optimus explained. "It is said to be quite entertaining as well as educational."

"All right, then," Prowl said. The tell-tale signs of a phone jostling sounded over the line. "Sorry, Prime. Jazz wants to tell you something and I told him that it was against code." Optimus could tell by his old friend's tone that his door-wings were raised high in annoyance.

"Howdy, Prime," Jazz's voice exploded over the speaker. "You won't believe what I found today. It looked like some odd piece of metal, and when I picked it up it matched the energy signature for the Allspark."

"What!" Prowl asked in the background. "You didn't tell me that, Jazz! You said it was just a chunk of metal."

"That's what I thought at the time," Jazz said, "but then I scanned it again with a higher filter on it and it matched the signature code-for-code. There may still be a chance that we can repair it. The power seems to grow every time I check on it."

The great Prime sighed, both out of relief and out of stress. "That is good news, Jazz. Please keep me informed, to both of you. Prime out." He hung up the phone and looked up at the others. "Lily, Savannah, we have reached a complication in your protection."

"Why is that?" Savannah asked.

"It has to do with this Allspark. Am I right?" Lily asked.

"Very right," Perceptor said. "The Allspark is the reason why we left Cybertron in the first place. It is the source of life for us and is one of the factors in being able to make sparklings, our children."

"It's also a great source of power, however," Ironhide continued, "and Megatron, the Decepticon leader, wanted this power for himself. So Optimus did the only thing he could think of and ejected it into space. It crash-landed onto your planet and unfortunately was disintegrated into shards of metal."

"Until now, we thought they were all gone," Optimus said. "Now that Jazz has found one, there may be hope yet for our species. I can only wish that we can find the others as well."

"What does this metal look like?" Lily asked suspiciously.

"It's fairly black, much like your obsidian," Perceptor said. "Although it is made of metal."

Lily's jaw dropped. "I had better show you this, then," she said, and darted underneath her bed after avoiding the tangle of holoform legs. She returned with a gun case and sat on the bed as she popped open the latches. She took out a gun similar to the one fired in the stock show yards, opening the magazine chamber and pulling out a small chip. She handed it to Optimus. "Is this a piece?"

Optimus took the small chip and stared at it. Its black pebbled surface gleamed golden as the light hit the ancient words inscribed in the cube. He could feel the power radiating from the Matrix in his spark chamber as he stared at it. Everyone stared at him, waiting for his verdict. "Yes," he said, awed. "This most definitely is a piece of the Allspark. Why was it in your weapon?"

Lily sighed. "I'm afraid humanity has done a great deal of disrespecting your artifacts," she said. "My parents were working for a private lab with weapons, right? Well, for some reason, they started to use these in their designs - more bang for your buck, I think they said - and found that they were useful for the military. I'm sure that if we can get to the lab that we can find information on the location of the shard they chipped this from."

"On Saturday, then, we shall go to this lab," Optimus said. Lily looked at him with a troubled expression. "Don't feel bad, Lily. Your parents most likely had no idea what kind of artifact this is. We'll get it back. If Jazz said that his shard is regenerating at the rate it is, then there's no telling how much power we can get from it. We may even be able to restore it completely."

"Which means that we'll need protection for it as well," Ironhide said. "Carry that chip everywhere with you, Lily. Do not lose it."

Lily gulped. The fate of an entire species rested partly on her shoulders.

* * *

**A/N: I do not own the Transformers, TCU, or Winnie the Pooh, but I do own my characters. I just had to throw in that little bit about Eeyore since Peter Cullen voices him too. :) Now we're finally getting somewhere with the plot! This whole chapter practically wrote itself - I had no idea it would spin off in this direction, but I think it turned out well. All hail the power of the muse. *bows down* Energon snacks to all who review! ^.^**


	4. Chapter 4

"So why am I the one to do this?" Lily asked as Savannah attached the small microphone to her shoulder. The rest of the week had passed without incident and Saturday morning had now arrived, meaning that it was time to get information on the Allspark out of her parents' lab. "You know how nervous I get."

"We believe in you," Optimus said.

Lily sighed and murmured a "That's great" as she looked down at the floor, not meeting anyone's eyes (or optics, as the case may be). Someone placed a hand on her shoulder. It was Sideswipe.

"Listen, Lils," he said. Lily frowned slightly at the nickname. "You can do this. You're the only one we can think of who can go in there and get that data. It may seem like you can't, but you're stronger than you look. You said yourself that your parents let you into the lab all the time. They trust you, and we do too. I think the human phrase is 'don't sell yourself short.'"

For the first time that day, a hint of a smile appeared on Lily's face. "That's the spirit," Wheeljack said as he clapped her on the back. "This microphone will allow both us and the 'bots back at the main station downtown to hear you. You'll have 15 pairs of auditory receptors looking out for you."

"16," Savannah corrected. "You forgot me."

"Sorry," Wheeljack said. "15 pairs of experienced warriors' and medics' auditory receptors and one pair of human receptors."

"Now that's more like it," Savannah said.

Ironhide appeared at Lily's side. "Are you ready to go?" he asked. Lily nodded. Ironhide, albeit grudgingly, had agreed to take her to the lab since he was one of the only Autobots without a flashy alternate mode. Sure, his truck was huge, but it wouldn't stick out as much as a Ferrari like the twins, a Search and Rescue Hummer like Ratchet, or a semi like Optimus. His holoform placed a hand up to his ear. "All right, testing."

"I can hear you loud and clear," Lily said after his voice came through the speaker attached to her ear.

"We're good on this end," Prowl said. "Let's go, everyone."

"Autobots, roll out," Optimus said, and he and Ironhide escorted Lily to Ironhide's alt mode. She hopped inside the passenger's seat and closed the door gently behind her as his the weapon specialist's holoform climbed into the driver's seat. They pulled out of the parking lot a minute later.

"So," Lily said after a moment of awkward silence, "you're the weapons specialist."

A grunt came from Ironhide's direction.

"What exactly does that...mean?"

"You're either very curious, femme, or very stupid," Ironhide said without taking his eyes off the road. Lily turned to face him, mouth open in shock.

Suddenly a voice came over her headset. "Ironhide isn't the most loquacious of mechs," Prowl said. "I do apologize on his behalf."

"Prowl's talking about me, isn't he?" Ironhide asked from beside her. She jumped. "I don't appreciate it."

"He says he's sorry for that," Lily said, though Prowl had said no such thing. She figured that she should keep the peace somehow.

Ironhide barked out a laugh. "If there's anything Prowl wouldn't do, it would be apologizing," he said. "I appreciate that, though, kid."

"I'm not a kid," Lily said, miffed.

"You are to me. I'm approximately 14 billion earth years old."

"Holy-" the college student started to say, but stopped. There really wasn't anything else to say to that. Her entire lifespan compared to his was like the lifespan of a fly, or maybe even the blink of his optics. The rest of the ride continued in silence until they reached the interstate exit for the lab. "Turn off here. The lab should be down the road a little ways."

"I train everybody and keep our arsenals up-to-date," the mech suddenly said as he exited the freeway.

Lily blinked in confusion. "What?"

The weapons specialist turned to the college student. "You asked me what I did as a weapons specialist. I answered you."

"Oh," she said. She looked out the window. "There's the lab. Pull in here."

Ironhide did as he was told and found a parking spot near the back of the lot underneath a shady tree. "I know it's a long way to walk, but maybe this way my alt form will not be as noticeable," he explained. "Not to mention I won't heat up as fast as I would if I were out in the sun."

Lily stifled the urge to giggle and patted the top of the truck. "I don't think you need to worry about that," she said. "If people have the urge to see you, they'll come all the way back here to say hi anyway."

"I don't understand."

"Ironhide, what Lily is trying to say is that your alt form is hot already," Savannah said over their comms units, giggling. "People notice hot vehicles and sometimes just stare at them. I know I have."

"What does temperature have to do with anything?" Ratchet asked.

The line was silent for a moment. "Not temperature!" Savannah said, now downright laughing. "I mean that many people find certain vehicles...well...sexy."

Ironhide's holoform sputtered in surprise from beside Lily as he stopped walking down the aisle of cars. "You okay, Ironhide?" Lily asked as she stared at the mech. He didn't answer. She chewed the bottom of her lip before speaking. "Guys, I think we broke him. Savannah, this is all your fault."

"What are you talking about?" her friend asked. "You were the one that mentioned it in the first place."

Optimus decided to step in before the whole operation failed before it started. "No matter who started what, we need to focus on our objectives," the Autobot leader said. "Please focus on what we're trying to achieve here." The girls apologized as Lily and Ironhide walked into the lobby of the lab. A pert brunette secretary looked up from the computer at the newcomers.

"Lily, what a nice surprise," she said. "I'll tell your parents that you're here."

"Hi, Samantha," Lily said as she awkwardly hugged the secretary from across the desk. "This is Ireland Kearney, one of my friends from school. He's in the ROTC there."

"It's very nice to meet you," Samantha said. Lily fought the urge to stifle both a smile and a groan; like the other Autobots, Ironhide had unfortunately chosen a rather attractive holoform. Snickering sounding suspiciously like Savannah traveled through the headset. Samantha called in Lily's parents and the two arrived in the lobby a moment later. A tall yet stocky man wrapped his arms around Lily and drew back, allowing what Ironhide could only recognize as Lily's maternal unit to wrap her arms around her sparkling in what humans called a "hug." Lily beamed around them and then caught Ironhide's gaze.

"Mom, Dad, this is Ireland Kearney. He's in the ROTC at school and was doing a paper about different weapons technology in the army. I was hoping that you could help him?" She looked back and forth between her parents with pleading eyes.

"Honey, you know that we can't give out any information about the technology we're working on right now," her father said. He turned to Ironhide. "I'm Matt Evans, by the way, and this is my wife Doreen."

"That's perfectly all right," Ironhide said. "I was actually doing the paper on some of the more obsolete technology - the kind of weapons they just retired."

"Oh, all right then," Matt said with a sheepish laugh. "I'm so used to people asking about our research that I just assumed..."

"No worries," Ironhide said. "I would be paranoid too, with it being top-secret and all."

"Ireland, huh?" Doreen asked as she led the four of them to a hallway leading deeper into the lab. "What an unusual name."

"For some reason my parents decided to name me and all of my siblings after where we were conceived." Lily choked a little at this cover story. "There's me, Scotland, - everyone calls him Scot, though - Russia, Australia, Morocco, and Poland."

"That's very...interesting..." Matt said. An awkward silence reigned for a moment as the quartet walked towards Matt and Doreen's office.

"Lily, you're approaching the room with the main computer network," Prowl said. "Wheeljack told me that he can reroute all of the power to that computer terminal and keep the security cameras from finding you. But you'll have a window of five minutes, maximum, to do this. Are you ready?" Lily gulped and hoped that no one heard.

"Ready," she whispered, shaky.

"The room is to your left. Go right about...now." All of the lights turned off in the building, resulting in inky blackness and several shouts of confusion. She half stumbled, half hurried to the door and found it unlocked. _Thank you Wheeljack_, she thought as she slipped inside the room. The main computer hub had lit up like a firecracker and she scurried over towards it without incident, pulling out the flash drive that Optimus had given her at the start of the mission. Her hands shook as she inserted the device into the computer and found what files she needed from the computer. She waited for the files to load and found herself shifting weight from side to side in her haste to leave. A beep from the computer drew her attention to the monitor.

"It's wanting a password," Lily whispered. She hated how her voice wavered from panic. "What do I do? Who in their right mind requires a password _after_ the documents have already loaded?" Her palms began to sweat.

"Lily, I know that it is hard, but please relax," Optimus said. "Wheeljack and Perceptor are working on cracking the code. They can access the computer from over here. There is nothing for you to worry about at the moment."

"What about getting caught?" Lily asked. Tears of frustration and fear sprang into her eyes. She cursed herself for her weakness. _They're counting on me,_ she thought. _I can't let them down!_

"We will work it out," Optimus said. "In the meantime-"

"Lilian Isabella Evans, calm yourself at once." Ratchet's snap caused her to jump and place a hand over the ear with the headset. "Your heart rate is too fast. It's straining too much, too quickly. You can hurt yourself if you do not calm down. And if you don't calm down, you'll have to answer to me."

"Y-yes, Ratchet," Lily said. The computer chirruped at her and she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding when she saw that the computer had accepted the Autobot scientists' password. It also stated that the download was complete. "It's all done on this end. Now I just need to get out of here before the security cameras fire up again." She slipped the flash drive back into her pocket and padded over to the door, blinking once in the darkness of the hallway. Luckily, the door closed without a sound. "Mom? Dad? Ireland?"

"Oh, thank goodness we found you," Doreen's voice said from somewhere to her left. Lily turned towards it. "With the power off, we were scared something had happened to you."

_No, nothing happened to me, Mom. Just stealing some confidential, top-secret documents about your line of work,_ Lily's darker side thought. _Yeah, that'll go over real well._ Out loud she said, "You shouldn't worry about me, Mom. I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself."

"Or you can get Ireland to take care of you," Doreen said. "I think he likes you. And he's easy on the eyes as well."

Lily's mind made a noise somewhere between a sputter and a gag. "Uh...yeah," she said awkwardly, as the voices on her headset began to laugh and react in similar manners to her brain. "I don't think that would work out too well." _Considering he's a giant alien robot who is three times older than the Earth_, she added in her mind. "We're just friends."

"That's how it always starts," Doreen said in a sing-song voice.

"That's how what always starts?" Ironhide asked as he approached.

"Nothing, dear," Doreen said. "Now then, Ireland, do you think you got enough information for your paper?"

Ironhide nodded though no one could see him in the darkness. "Sure did. Thank you."

"You're very welcome. I hope to see you soon."

_I'm sure you do, _Lily thought as she fought to hide a small snicker. "Ireland, we should go. I think Savannah's meeting with her boyfriend Todd for lunch with us." She jumped when she felt a hand take her by the upper arm, leading her through the darkness.

"Relax, it's just me," Ironhide said. "Thank you, Mrs. Evans. It was really kind of you." The weapons specialist, able to see through the darkness because of the enhanced vision in his holoform, led Lily out of the door and into the sunlight. She blinked in the contrast of dark and light and, slightly blinded, stared down at the concrete as the Autobot led her to his alt mode. The two loaded up in the truck and Lily turned to Ironhide's holoform.

"Where on earth did you come up with that story about the names?" she asked. "How did you know that some people actually use that custom?"

"I didn't come up with it," he said. "My parental units named me after an arsenal in Polyhex for the same reason. Ironhide is what that name translates to in English."

A groan came over the headset. "There are some things you just don't want to know about a mech," Jazz said. Lily could practically hear the grimace in his voice. "I think I'm scarred, mech. I didn't want to know that about your parents, 'Hide."

"Well, I didn't exactly ask you to listen in, Jazz," Ironhide said. He smirked at the fact that he caused the saboteur some amount of distress, no matter how light of a disturbance it was. The rest of the drive back to the campus passed with banter on all sides of the communication unit: Ironhide's alt mode, the computer room in the girls' dorm, and the station. They reached the computer room and Ironhide locked the door behind him, keeping out unwanted visitors. Savannah and the holoforms all greeted them with smiles.

"I knew you could do it," Savannah said with a smile, jumping up to hug her friend. Lily squeaked from lack of air. "Now let's see what's on this sucker." Lily handed her the flash drive and Savannah handed it to Wheeljack, seated at a computer. He plugged it into the computer and opened one of the files. Everyone huddled around the monitor to look at the files.

"Primus," Ultra Magnus said as a diagram of a weapon appeared. "Lily, your parents managed to pack the amount of force from one of Ironhide's cannons into that tiny gun. And all by using the Allspark alone."

"With this information in hand, we need to find the location of this Allspark before the Decepticons do," Optimus said. "Otherwise, there could be grave consequences."

"I did manage to find an interesting file of some sort," Lily said, "although I'm not sure how useful it is. It honestly seems like a bunch of gibberish to me." Wheeljack went back to the list of main documents on the flash drive and Lily pointed to one. "There. It's that one, I think." Wheeljack opened the file and a bunch of symbols that almost looked half-Japanese, half-Telugu appeared on the screen. Someone gasped, but Lily wasn't sure who. "What is it?"

"This file is written in High Iaconian," Optimus said, "my native language. And this means that someone working in your parents' lab is Cybertronian."

For a few moments, Lily could do nothing but stare at the Autobot leader with an open mouth. She finally closed it and found her voice. "So that means that...someone in the labs isn't telling the truth about what they are. What if it's a Decepticon?" Her heart began to race.

"Calm down, youngling," Ratchet said as he placed a gentle hand on Lily's shoulder. "Iacon was the headquarters for the Autobots before Cybertron fell. More than likely this Cybertronian is an Autobot."

"That doesn't mean that we can let this go," Red Alert said over the monitors. "What if it's a Decepticon plot to lead us to a trap?"

"Red, don't get your circuits in a bunch," Jazz said. "You'll be fine. More than likely, Ratchet's right. Whoever it is is probably Autobot."

Optimus sighed and everybody turned to look at him. Lily marveled at the fact that the leader's mere breath could get everybody's attention. "Regardless," Optimus said, "Red Alert is right. We will need to be on our toes in the event that this somehow is a trap. I can decrypt this data and will have it available by tonight. Then we can find the location sometime during the week. Stay alert, everyone. 'Til all are one."

"'Til all are one," the holoforms repeated, and began to leave the room. Lily stayed behind and looked at the leader with hesitant eyes.

"Optimus?" she asked meekly.

The leader turned to face her. "What is it that you would like to know, little one?" he asked.

She fought the urge to giggle. It seemed that despite being the same height as other humans, the holoforms had taken to calling the girls "little" and "small." She took a deep breath in preparation of what she was going to say. "I have an...odd question, to say the least. Why are you decoding the information, instead of Perceptor or Wheeljack? Wouldn't it be faster if they did it?"

"No," Optimus said. "Here, sit down for a moment." He reached over to pull one of the rolling chairs closer to him. "To fully understand what is going on, you would need to understand certain aspects of Cybertronian culture. Primes are made, not born. I wasn't always Optimus Prime. Before I became Prime, I was known as Orion Pax. I worked at the archives in Iacon. At first I worked mostly with people wanting to know more about their lineage - I believe that humans call this hobby 'genealogy' - but after a while my superiors realized just how efficient I was and set me to work decoding all sorts of documents. These documents later proved to be useful in the war effort."

"So you were basically a librarian," Lily said. She fought to stifle a giggle - the thought of that massive machine as a librarian!

"Yes, I was," Optimus said, "but all of that changed after my father Sentinel Prime died. The Matrix, which is the artifact that hosts our afterlife and the connection to our deity Primus, chose me as my father's successor. Needless to say my brother Megatron was not entirely happy." He chuckled at this. "Megatron was always what people would call a troubled soul. Both my mother and I were very upset when he chose this dark path. I always thought he would get better; I suppose he will not, though." Optimus heaved a great sigh.

Lily rested a hand on his shoulder. "It'll be all right," she murmured. "I'm sure there was nothing you could do. You said the other day that freedom was the right of all sentient beings. Megatron was one of those beings, and you could do nothing to stop the path he chose. No one blames you for that." Optimus looked up at her caring face, and she noticed that he had tears in his eyes. It was just another curiosity of the holoforms, she mused, and reached up to wipe the tears out of his eyes. "You know, you don't have to be a leader all the time. We know that you need some time to yourself too."

The Prime was silent for a moment. "Thank you," he finally said. "I think I needed to hear that." He stood and turned back to face Lily. "And Lily? We'll meet at 10 AM tomorrow to work through all of this data and come up with a plan. Please be present for that."

"Will do, Optimus," Lily said, and started to exit. "Good night, sir."

"Good night," the leader responded. Her last view of him that night was of him sitting in an office chair, trying to decode the information. She sighed; he really needed a break. She began to formulate a plan of her own to get the Autobot to relax.

* * *

**A/N: I just learned that right across the fire station that Prowl, Jazz, etc. were at is a road named Cullen Street. Fort Worth ftw! XD**  
** Please R&R. Cookies for all! I don't own Transformers, Fort Worth, or TCU. Also, I would like to thank Oedipa13 for adding me to their story watch and Dunk234 for adding me to their list of favorite stories. You have no idea how much this means to me since I'm just starting out on this website. You two are the first to both watch and favorite my story, so thank you. It means a lot.  
**


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Optimus woke Lily up with another phone call. "I can sense this becoming a pattern," she grumbled to herself as she got dressed. She didn't bother to wake up Savannah. A knock at the door alerted her to the holoforms' presence and she walked over to let them in the room. "She hasn't woken up yet," Lily said in answer to Sunstreaker's questioning gaze.

"I can see that," he said as he sat beside the sleeping blonde. She moaned a bit in her sleep as she turned over to face the two. "What the-! She grabbed my butt!"

Sideswipe began to laugh. "Someone's popular today," he said.

"Aw, come on, mech," Sunstreaker said. "Don't leave me here. Help me out. Augh!"

Lily took pity on the twin and attempted to wake up her sleeping roommate as the other holoforms in the room took seats around the room. Optimus, holding the flash drive, looked at everybody in turn. "I've finally decoded all of the information," he said. He looked it, too. Lily remembered that all of the holoforms reflected their owners' condition and sighed. Blue-purple bags underneath his eyes revealed that he was exhausted. "It turns out that the password-protected information was a map leading to a rather large shard of the Allspark, about two feet wide and four feet tall. I believe that the shard is located somewhere in London and the locals call it the 'London Stone.'"

"Oh yeah," Wheeljack said. "I read about that stone when I was researching Earth culture. They say that it protects London. They also call it the 'Stone of Brutus.'"

"If they say that it protects London, though," Ultra Magnus said, "and this London Stone is the Allspark..."

"There's a chance that it might actually protect London from something," Optimus finished gravely.

A dark silence filled the room. "So what do we do?" Savannah asked, now awake. "If we take out the Allspark, then what would happen?"

"Maybe nothing," Optimus replied, "but maybe everything. The Allspark protects everything that it deems important. London is the capitol of the United Kingdom, so naturally the Allspark will deem that important, no matter what the species. It is on Cannon Street, am I correct?"

Wheeljack nodded. "Yes sir," he said. "111 Cannon Street, to be precise. It is located in a grate consisting of Portland stone and iron, near the bottom of the building facing the street."

"Thank you for that information, Wheeljack," Optimus said.

"If we are to rescue the Allspark, though, Prime," Ironhide said, "what about all of those people in London? The Allspark has been there for human centuries. Whatever it's protecting them from has got to be bad if it has stayed there for that length of time."

"And that is just what I've figured out in this other file," Optimus said. "There was an artifact from the human tribe the Anglo-Saxons that tells the story of a powerful being which had the power to cause great destruction in its wake. May I see your laptop, Lily?"

"Of course," the girl replied, and fetched it for him. He powered it up and opened the correct file.

"Here is the artifact," Optimus said, and turned the laptop around so that everyone could see.

"Primus!" Ratchet exclaimed. "I've only seen one thing that can cause that much destruction, and it-"

"It's Unicron," Perceptor said in a hushed tone, his hand covering his mouth.

"What's that?" Savannah asked. "It just looks like a big ball."

"Believe me, it's a lot more than that," Ratchet said. "Unicron is the equivalent of your Devil in Christianity. Only this time, he has a physical manifestation. He destroys entire worlds in mere minutes. And the worst part is...he has his eye on Earth."

* * *

Meanwhile, a small bot keened at the sight of a tarp-covered Decepticon in the stock show arena. The Autobots would pay for this; Frenzy knew it. He wouldn't let his sire's death be in vain. He allowed himself to mourn the death a little longer before scuttling out of the arena, chattering all the while. Someone's footsteps alerted him to a presence and he transformed into a small flash drive. He transformed back after the threat passed and ran down an alleyway, emerging outside a coffee shop. Frenzy rubbed his servos together in excitement; there was a reason the insects called coffee the "nectar of the gods." He hacked into the security system and scurried inside before downing the substance within seconds. Now fully caffeinated, he ran out of the coffee shop and began to track down any energon signatures he could find. There were several in a university called "Texas Christian University," or what the locals referred to as "TCU" for short.

"Must fi-fi-find energon," Frenzy said in his gibbering language, "befor-for-fore Autobots reach. Need new alt form." He reached the edge of the campus, in an alleyway, and noticed a college-aged man walking down the sidewalk idly, listening to music and not paying any attention to his surroundings. This was a mistake.

Frenzy reached out a servo and gained control of the iPod, which allowed him to gain access to his brain via the ear-buds. It was an odd process, to be sure, and Frenzy hated it. His sire Barricade had installed that part of Frenzy's programming when he learned that Frenzy would make a good spy; the police car knew that Frenzy would possibly be in trouble, and would possibly need an organic alt form. The technology allowed Frenzy to blend in as an organic, at the cost of the organic's life. Frenzy felt the changes begin to take shape and looked down at his servos. _I guess I should call them hands, now,_ he thought wryly as he felt the oily organic skin over them. He found a suitable place to hide the body and then continued on his merry way, now human.

* * *

"So you're saying that this Devil-Unicron of yours will eat the Earth if you rescue the Allspark, yet you need the Allspark to regenerate itself," Lily said slowly, trying to take it all in.

"That is correct," Perceptor said. "Unfortunately, I believe we have reached what your species calls a 'catch-23.'"

"Catch-22," Lily corrected, absent-minded. "So what are we going to do? Surely there has to be some way that we can both work it out. Doesn't this Unicron guy have an Achilles heel or something?"

"He eats planets," Ironhide said. "He doesn't have a heel, Achilles or not."

"No, no, no," Lily said, gesticulating wildly with her arms. "Achilles heel. It's named after the Greek god Achilles, who was bathed as a baby in this river to make him invincible. Unfortunately, his heel was the part that they held him by so he wouldn't drown in the river, and wasn't protected there. He was killed in battle when he was wounded in the heel. Ever since then, people have called weak spots 'Achilles heels.' Bizarre but true. At least in Greek mythology, that is."

"Fascinating," Perceptor said. "Are there any other phrases like that?"

Lily frowned slightly in response. "I'm not sure."

"Everyone, back on task," Optimus said. "I have contacted Prowl. He'll know what to do." The leader sighed. "I am not sure of any 'Achilles heels' of which you speak on Unicron. It is highly likely there are none at all."

"Don't be such a negative Nancy, Optie," Savannah said. "Everyone has a weak spot. Mine is chocolate."

The others in the room stared at her, both from her choice of nicknames and from her sudden insight. "You're a genius," Wheeljack exclaimed. "I've got it! We need to get the Allspark, yet keep Unicron at bay, right? Well, if we make him think there's a whole other planet out there, then we can get him to leave Earth alone!" Ratchet raised an eyebrow.

"I hate to say it, but he has a point," the medic said. "Wheeljack, is there any way that you can possibly create a device similar to our holoform projectors that can stand the weight of an entire planet?"

Wheeljack's face fell. "I...maybe? -Ish? I'm not sure. I can try, though." His face brightened a tad and Sideswipe clapped him on the back.

"I'm sure you'll be fine, Jackie," the twin said. "You just need to alter it somehow. And maybe we can get Hound involved too. Optimus, didn't you say that he was inbound soon?"

"He should be here in roughly a week, if not earlier," Optimus said. "Wheeljack, if you can create this device, you absolutely must protect it with your life. We cannot let this or the Evans' technology fall into Decepticon hands. Compute?"

"Yes sir," Wheeljack said with a salute. "I won't let that happen. You can count on me, Prime."

"I know I can," Optimus said, "and I thank you for that, old friend."

A knock at the door interrupted their conversation and everyone fell silent, tense. The Autobot holoforms, minus Optimus, disappeared one by one as Savannah walked to the door and opened it. Optimus felt his vents stall as he hid in the closet and hoped that whoever was at the door wasn't affiliated with the enemy. Savannah squealed. "Todd! You're back!"

Lily squandered a groan unconsciously appearing in her throat before it began. If there was one thing in the world she hated about college life, it would be Savannah's boyfriend. He tended to treat Lily like dirt, ignoring her opinions and acting rude in general. Unfortunately, he was on the football team, and everyone worshiped the ground he walked upon. "Hey, babe," Todd said to her roommate.

"Hey, sweetheart," Savannah said, kissing him on the lips. Lily would have gagged had it not been for Todd's reaction; he stiffened slightly, almost as if he had never been kissed before. _That's odd_, Lily thought. "Are you ready to go out?"

"If you go out, make sure you call me later," Lily said to her roommate. "Don't want you getting lost in some secluded area where you can make out now." The girl winked at Savannah with a wry grin.

"Yes, mother dearest," Savannah said, and left with her boyfriend in tow. After Todd shut the door, Optimus came out of the closet and stood beside Lily.

"Who was that?" the Autobot leader asked. "Why did she go with him like that?"

"How much do you know about Earth culture in regards to familial structures?" Lily asked. "That was Savannah's boyfriend Todd. In most western societies, courtship happens when a couple gets together and the rest of the society recognizes them as boyfriend and girlfriend. Or girlfriend and girlfriend or boyfriend and boyfriend, if the case may be," she added as an afterthought. "Then if they love each other enough, the boyfriend will propose to the girlfriend and they'll get married, which is the final step in courtship. People who like the same gender still haven't been given the right to marriage yet, unfortunately. It's considered a deviancy in many societies."

"I see. That is actually backwards in our society," Optimus said. "Many of us are what you would call 'gay.' I am not one of them. To my knowledge, that is. Our courtship patterns are very similar, however."

"How does it work?" Lily asked, the scientist in her starting to emerge.

"We start a period of courtship, usually about a vorn - 83 years - long, where we are around each other a lot. Then when the time is right, we bond. Bonding is a private, sacred thing. Many times the couple doesn't even tell their closest friends. You may have heard Ratchet mentioning sparks?"

Lily vaguely recognized the term. "Once or twice, perhaps."

"Those are our souls. When we bond, it is forever," the Autobot leader explained. "A little bit of our spark - our soul - lodges in our bondmate's spark for the rest of eternity. There is no such thing as divorce in our society. It's a curious custom here. It is the one that intrigues me the most."

"Same here," Lily admitted honestly. "Did you ever meet anyone?"

"Once, a long time ago. Her name was Elita-One, and she was killed in the line of duty quite some time ago."

"Oh gosh," Lily said with her hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry...I forgot about your femmes."

Optimus smiled wanly. "It is all right," he said. "I know you meant no harm from it." Lily wrapped her arms around his holoform in a giant bear hug. He stiffened for a moment but relaxed and hugged her back. They parted a moment later. "Thank you for that. I believe I...needed to let some of that out."

"You're welcome, Prime," Lily said. "If there's anything else you need...well, I'm the girl for it." She paused in realization. "I had better go. I think Magnus is supposed to escort me to my next class."

"All right, then," Optimus said. "I will see you later."

The two parted ways after Lily grabbed her backpack. She found Magnus in the courtyard outside her dorm room and he stood to greet her with a somber nod as she approached. "Hi," she said.

"Hello," he responded, with no hint of emotion whatsoever. She sighed. _And so it begins,_ she thought. Ultra Magnus had to be one of the strangest of the Autobots. He was quiet all the time and she never knew what to think of him; he left her in more awkward silences than she could count. After a moment, Ultra Magnus spoke again. "You know, that was a good thing you did back there."

"What?" Lily asked, jolting from her own thoughts. "What did I do?"

"That whole conversation with Optimus there," Ultra Magnus said. "He needed that. It's been roughly 250 vorn since Elita offlined, and he has mourned her this whole time."

"How did you-how did you know what happened back there?" Lily asked. "With me and all?"

"Optimus and I are actually twins," Ultra Magnus said, "though I am the younger brother by five breem - I believe a breem is eight minutes, so I'm 40 minutes younger than him. Do you know anything about sparks?"

"Ratchet and Optimus taught me a little bit, but not much."

"Well, Optimus and I have something called a twin bond, and that means that even though we are in separate bodies, we still have a connection to each other. We can each feel what the other is thinking and send emotions down the bond when the other is feeling something negative like sadness or fear. In Optimus's case, it was grief. It's been that way for all 250 vorn, and even beyond that in the case of the war." He paused. "Until now, that is. I suppose it took knowing someone who wasn't too close to the situation, like how you ignore your closest friends sometimes because you know they're just saying something to make you feel better. After you walked outside, I felt the first sign of happiness coming from Optimus's spark in a long, long time. So thank you."

Lily was stunned into silence. That was the first time that she had heard Ultra Magnus talk that much.

"I'm just glad I could help," she said. She groaned. "I so do not want to go to Biology today."

"Just focus on that as long as you can," Magnus advised. "It will probably be the most amount of normal you'll have for a long time."

As she walked, Lily realized that the sad part was that he was right.

* * *

**Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, the London Stone or its legend, TCU, iPods, London, or Fort Worth. I do own my OCs and the plot. A big thank you to Summer903 and McCrane55, who have favorited this story. *hands energon cookies* Yay! Thank you so much!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Filler chapter is filler. Sorry everyone - my muse has apparently decided to take a vacation. Here's something to tide you over until my muse gets back from Diego Garcia. -.- In other news, I don't own Transformers. Energon cookies to Dragonjg for adding this to their favorite stories!**

* * *

Lily woke up at 12:30 on Thursday knowing that something was going to go wrong. She didn't know how or why, but something deep in her gut told her that there would be some sort of incident later that day. She quickly gathered a bowl of cereal with some bananas from her dorm's cafeteria and met Wheeljack at one of the tables. "Hello, Lily," he said with a smile. "Ready for your chemistry lab?"

"I suppose so," she replied before spooning a portion of her breakfast into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed. "It'll be fun. I heard we're talking about potassium and its forms today."

"Oh good," Wheeljack said, clapping his hands together once. "I always thought that potassium was a curious substance. It should give me a chance to study how you humans interact with its properties."

Lily's eyes widened; wasn't Wheeljack the one who blew up things? "Right..." she said slowly. She forced herself to not panic. She couldn't rely on the other Autobots for protection all of the time. Wheeljack would be involved at some point or another. She scarfed down the rest of her breakfast and the pair walked to her chemistry lab. She took a seat at one of the stools and Wheeljack sat to her right. She barely listened to the lecture and when it came time to do the experiment, she relied heavily on Wheeljack for support. This wasn't the best of ideas. For some reason, even though it was against the rules to eat in the lab, the pair in front of Lily and Wheeljack had sneaked in some gummy bears and were eating them.

"Hey, Chandra," Wheeljack said to one member of the pair with a dangerous glint in his eye. The other Autobots would have known that he was plotting something if they had been there. Chandra turned around to look at him. "Could you please hand me one of those, please?"

"Sure, but I don't know what you would need it for," Chandra replied, tossing him a green gummy bear. He caught it and stuffed it down the test tube full of molten potassium chlorate. Lily jolted back when the chlorate began to flash like lightning as it whistled, attracting the rest of the class's and the professor's attention.

"Fascinating," Wheeljack muttered to himself. "So when sugar is added, the chlorate reacts rather violently."

Lily face-palmed.

"Mister Jack, I believe that you are to do something actually productive in this classroom," their professor said with a slight glare in their direction. "Instead of setting sugar on fire, that is. Put whatever it is that you burned away, please." Wheeljack had the decency to blush and the pair in front of them quickly hid their candy. After writing down the results of their experiment, they moved on to another. This time it involved potassium perchlorate.

The room quickly filled with all sorts of reactions around the students. However, a considerable amount of the thermite that was near the pair had spilled onto the table. Unknowing of what the substance was, Lily had swept it all towards her. When Wheeljack's hands shook, the potassium perchlorate spilled onto the thermite. It promptly exploded into showers of hot golden sparks and melted into white-hot copper as it fell - right onto Lily.

* * *

The next thing Lily knew, she was looking up at a non-descript ceiling. She moaned before turning and almost squealed in pain. She squirmed when she felt a tingling running up and down her whole body. "Lily, it's all right," a soothing voice said. She looked into Ratchet's holoform eyes. "Unfortunately, Wheeljack had one of his famous lab accidents and you got in the way. He feels awful about the whole thing. But don't worry; I took care of it. You're in the hospital and under my care until further notice. Your parents said that they would be here soon. Just take a break. Are you in pain?"

"A little bit, yeah." She paused for a moment. "Ratchet, what was that tingling that I felt? Did I get a third degree burn or something?"

"No," he said. "I was med-scanning you from my position outside in the parking lot. Both fortunately and unfortunately all you got were second degree burns, meaning that you can still feel pain because your nerves are intact. However, your nerves are at least intact. Just relax; I'll up your pain medicine for you." He adjusted a dial on a machine next to her bed and at that moment Lily realized that she had an IV in her hand. She cringed, hating needles. Of all the ways to get in a hospital with giant robots around the place, and she got put in one because of a simple science experiment! Ratchet ran his hand down the length of her chin and rested it there. She sighed and drifted off.


End file.
